Cero Reviews PWG Mystery Vortex IV

[cero2k]

PWG Mystery Vortex IV
December 16, 2016
Reseda, CA.

It's Mystery Vortex and you know what that means! No one, including the wrestlers know what the matches are tonight.

Candice LeRae vs Trent? - 7/10
Trent from the get go seems uneasy, he doesn't want to wrestle a woman, but as always, Candice is great at bringing out the fight from man that don't believe in inter-gender wrestling. Somewhere out there Bryan Alvarez is turning in someone's grave. Even Legion Larry is ready to fight Trent. Match was all Candice getting her ass kicked until Trent missed a corner move and Candice was able to get some momentum on her side. There was a really sick looking Cazadora Suplex where Candice rotated about 300 degrees before hitting the mat. Trent countered a Ms. Gargano Escape into a Crunchy and Super Crunchy for the win. Fun match, Candice looked a lot better than when she left last time.

ACH vs Trevor Lee - 7.5/10
Another returning wrestling with ACH. This was a back and forward match for the most part, really good one. ACH seemed a lot better than I remember him before going to NOAH. Match felt kind long towards the end. Lee at the end of the match reversed a top rope crossbody into that running flippy thing he does, looked impressive.

"Released" Matt Sydal vs "Bruiserweight" Pete Dunne - 8/10
3rd surprise return of the night, Matt Sydal, straight out of Japanese jail into the PWG ring. This was almost like Dunne vs Mandrews, but crispier wrestling, less unnecessary flippy shit, less Tombstone kick-outs, and tons of prison references. At one point, Sydal hit Dunne with a weapon, turned to the camera and with a huge smile in his face said "I'm a criminal now!", he is the happiest criminal out there. Finish was a bit of an overkill, but good.

Death By Elbow vs reDragon - 7.5/10
I guess we could say JT Dunn is a return, right? Bobby Fish returned on BOLA, so he doesn't count. At first they seemed to be building towards a Hero babyface in peril, but he made a comeback and Fish was the one who ended up in peril. This match never really got chaotic in the sense of how most other tag matches are now a days, to the point where the finish actually felt unexpected and lacking momentum. Team Kicky and Team Elbow definitely brought it, tons of stiff looking shots, but at the end, I felt this match undelivered considering the teams involved, I just expected more I guess. This was I believe Hero's last PWG match, kinda wish he had put someone else over, or maybe he did but we didn't get no speech in the DVD.

PWG World Championship No.1 Contendership Match
Adam Cole vs Chuck Taylor - 8/10
Taylor's undefeated streak finally brings him to a No.1 contendership match for the title, months and months of hard work pays off. Neither Chucky T or Cole knew this was going to name the new No.1 contender, so their reactions were priceless. During introductions, as it's common for Excalibur and Chucky T, they made fun of Cole's weight, who went to get in Excalibur's face and ended up getting tickled and punched. This was a short match considering the previous 3 matches, Taylor worked the head because "He's good with DDTs", while Cole was just doing Cole stuff. I loved the ending sequence, even if it included a penis getting bitten. The pop at the end was huge!

The Young Bucks vs Jeff Cobb and Matt Riddle - 7.5/10
They didn't show it, but initially everyone thought this was going to be Cobb vs Riddle and the people were going crazy, then The Young Bucks came out and people went crazier. The overall story here was that even though Cobb is super strong and Riddle a submission specialist, neither are tag team wrestlers, so they kept making mistakes as a tag team, like Riddle whipping his opponent to the wrong corners, or Cobb not acting fast to tags; meanwhile, The Bucks are obviously tag team specialist. This led the Bucks to dominate towards the end of the match, until they got waay to cocky for their own good and Cobb and Riddle were able to counter and take the win.

PWG World Championship Match
Zack Sabre Jr (C) vs "The Villain" Marty Scurll - 9/10
This match went about 40 minutes or so, they kept it for the most part inside the ring. This was a technical classic, usually the Zack Sabre style that starts with submission game, moving towards stiffing the fuck out of each other and ending with a race to lock in the best submission. These guys are the UK version of any classic rivalry you can think of. There was a unintentional ref bump towards the end that gave us a clear pin by Scurll, no cheating or anything, but later The Villain came out and he did try to cheat after Sabre had recovered. Match was great, I liked it more than the BOLA'15 match, I'd say it was about the RevPro High Stakes one, but not as heated, so it did kinda made it slow around the middle of the match.

Post-Match - Just a quick face off between Sabre and Chuck Taylor.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
Some nice surprises for a Mystery Vortex, but nothing that you'd get excited about unless you're following PWG month to month or were actually live at the event, which is always the bad thing about watching MV on DVD, you don't get that feeling people get when they hear the entrances themes and realize the match they're about to get. Wrestling-wise it was a great show top to bottom.